A colorful and flamboyant producer, Dino De Laurentiis has produced a remarkable range of motion pictures ranging from art-house fare (e.g., Fellini's "La Strada" 1954), camp classics ("Barbarella" 1968), overblown spectacles ("Tai Pan" 1986) and popular entertainments ("Hannibal" 2001). In all, he has either financed, produced or distributed over 600 movies and with the dawn of the new millennium and his seventh decade in the industry, he has shown no inclination of stopping.
Born near Naples, Italy, De Laurentiis entered his father's pasta business while still a teenager, but the idea of selling spaghetti did not appeal to the young man. Moving to Rome, he enrolled in the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and supported himself with acting roles and behind the scenes work until he decided to become a producer. In 1939, he debuted as the producer of "Troppo tardi t'ho conosciuta" but it was another nine years before he enjoyed a real international success with the neo-realistic "Riso Amaro/Bitter Rice" (1948). The film starred a buxom Sylvana Mangano whom De Laurentiis married in July 1949 and would star in "Il Lupo della Sila/The Lure of Sila" (1949), "Il Brigante Musolino/Outlaw Girl" (1950) and "Anna" (1951), all of which he produced.
In the 50s, De Laurentiis joined with Carlo Ponti in forming a production company that oversaw several prestigious Italian films, including Fellini's Oscar-winning "La Strada", "Attila" and "The Miller's Wife" (both 1955) and "Guendalina" (1957) before dissolving their partnership. By that time, he had branched out on his own, overseeing the epic "War and Peace" (1956), directed by King Vidor and starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda, and a reteaming with Fellini on the Oscar-winning "The Nights of Cabiria" (1957). In 1959, De Laurentiis oversaw his third Academy Award nominated foreign-language motion picture, "The Great War".
As the 60s unfolded, De Laurentiis built his own studio, Dino Citta, and alternated teaming with some of the European cinema's finest filmmakers like Vittorio De Sica ("The Last Judgment" 1962), Jean-Luc Godard ("Pierre le fou" 1965) and Claude Chabrol ("An Orchid for the Tiger" 1965) with more "popular" films like the religious-themed dramas "Barrabas" (1962) and the John Huston-directed "The Bible" (1966). This combination of art-house and commercial fare perhaps reached its most absurd in 1968 with the odd combination of Francois Truffaut's "The Bride Wore Black" and Roger Vadim's "Barbarella".
When Dino Citta failed, De Laurentiis relocated to the USA in the 70s and initiated a run of films that proved popular at the box office. He was producer of "The Valachi Papers" (1972), which was based on fact and purported to tell the "real" story that a film like "The Godfather" couldn't. "Serpico" (1973) garnered praise for its true-life tale of police corruption and for Al Pacino's magnificent portrayal of the title role. "Death Wish" (1974) perhaps tapped most into the zeitgeist, serving up a revenge tale that spawned several sequels and countless imitations. The spy thriller "Three Days of the Condor" (1975) combined the elements of pulp entertainment with highbrow aspirations, embodied in star Robert Redford and director Sydney Pollack. But De Laurentiis could also stoop low, as the dreadful "Mandingo" (1975) and its even more noisome sequel "Drum" (1976) can attest. Yet, perhaps the producer's biggest act of hubris was undertaking the remake of the 1933 classic "King Kong" (1976), which divided critics and audiences. Not losing his flair for the high-brow, De Laurentiis reteamed with Fellini one last time for "Fellini's Casanova" (1976), the director's ill-fated biopic of the great lover. He also produced Ingmar Bergman's venture into English-language filmmaking "The Serpent's Egg" (1978). Of this period, perhaps "Ragtime" (1981), the Milos Forman-helmed adaptation of E L Doctorow's historical novel, was the most intriguing.
In 1983, amid much fanfare he announced the formation of the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG) which included a state-of-the-art film studio in Wilmington, North Carolina. Serving as chair and CEO, De Laurentiis oversaw an ambitious slate of films, most of which proved to be box-office disappointments. Despite the presence of stars Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson, "The Bounty" (1984), a retelling of the famous mutiny, did not find an audience. "Dune" (1984), David Lynch's overly ambitious, unsuccessful distillation of Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel, proved an expensive failure as did such other pedigreed projects like "Year of the Dragon" (1985) and "Tai Pan". In 1988, De Laurentiis ceded defeat and resigned from DEG. Perhaps a lesser figure would have been driven from the industry, but not this formidable producer.
Rebounding, De Laurentiis made his first foray into American television with the CBS adaptation of "Stephen King's 'Sometime They Come Back'" (1991). He signed Madonna to star in "Body of Evidence" (1993), a "Basic Instinct"-inspired knockoff. For Showtime in 1995, De Laurentiis returned to the biblically-inspired films of the 60s and oversaw a remake of "Solomon and Sheba" as well as the tale of Joseph and his relationship with Potiphar's wife (misleadingly titled "Slave of Dreams"). Although "Unforgettable" (1996) wasn't, he enjoyed a critical hit with "Breakdown" (1997) and then reteamed with that film's writer-director Jonathan Mostow for the WWII-era tale "U-571" (2000).
De Laurentiis' production company had long held the rights to Thomas Harris' novels and was behind the Michael Mann-helmed "Manhunter" (1986), but when it came time to film "The Silence of the Lambs" in 1990, the company passed, only to see the film become a phenomenon and multiple Oscar winner. Despite the critical drubbing the original novel took and the defection of star Jodie Foster and director Jonathan Demme, De Laurentiis was determined to bring the long-awaited sequel "Hannibal" to the screen. Securing Anthony Hopkins to reprised his now signature role of Dr Lector, and rounding out the creative team with Julianne Moore (as FBI agent Clarice Starling) and Ridley Scott in the director's chair, the high profile project opened in theaters in 2001, just before its producer received the Irving G Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.